Author
Topic: Oak Cubes trouble shooting (Read 3247 times)

I have a small problem that I was hoping to get some help on. I have a lovely DIPA in the secondary that I added American Medium roast oak chips to. 1oz to five gallons. I messed up by preboiling the oak cubes and then adding them. i realized this as i was doing it. Somewhere in the back of my brain a neuron fired and said don't boil, but alas I went ahead. So now it has way too much oakiness in the beer. Is there anyway to reduce this? Add more water? Thank you for your help.

Actually, boiling will remove some of the oakiness so the beer is now less oaky than it would have otherwise been. I know guys who cook their oak chips in a pressure cooker and then just add the liquid to the beer.

The key here is really contact time based on surface/volume ratio. Because of the larger surface area of chips, they need to spend a lot less time in the beer than cubes would in the same volume of beer to impart the same amount of oakiness. Similarly, a barrel has less surface area per volume, so you age in a barrel for longer.

Anyway, the best way to solve the problem is to blend it with another beer. If it is extremely oaky then you might just add a little bit to a batch to get the oak level you want. Experiment in a glass before you go blending it 50/50 with something, or you might end up with 10 gallons of beer that is too oaky. You can brew another DIPA, an IPA, or PA to blend it with. It could be really nice with an Imperial Stout too, or lots of other styles depending on how much you need to add to get the oak level you want.

Anyway, the best way to solve the problem is to blend it with another beer. If it is extremely oaky then you might just add a little bit to a batch to get the oak level you want. Experiment in a glass before you go blending it 50/50 with something, or you might end up with 10 gallons of beer that is too oaky. You can brew another DIPA, an IPA, or PA to blend it with. It could be really nice with an Imperial Stout too, or lots of other styles depending on how much you need to add to get the oak level you want.

Let us know how it works out.

+1

Some of the oakiness will fade with time but I would blend a non-oaked beer with it to the level of your liking.

Anyway, the best way to solve the problem is to blend it with another beer. If it is extremely oaky then you might just add a little bit to a batch to get the oak level you want. Experiment in a glass before you go blending it 50/50 with something, or you might end up with 10 gallons of beer that is too oaky. You can brew another DIPA, an IPA, or PA to blend it with. It could be really nice with an Imperial Stout too, or lots of other styles depending on how much you need to add to get the oak level you want.

Let us know how it works out.

+1

Some of the oakiness will fade with time but I would blend a non-oaked beer with it to the level of your liking.

I would avoid using American oak next time, or use it sparingly. It is much stronger than a French or Hungarian oak (oakier?).

If you want to learn more about wood then you ever wanted... The Brewing Network did show on Oak a few years back that really had a ton of information. Not just on using Oak in different points in the brewing process, but information on toast levels, differences between American/French/Hungarian, when to use chips/cubes and what all of those things provide to the finished product. There was also a lot of information about using wine yeast that was interesting.